The Project Gutenberg EBook of One Purple Hope!, by Henry Hasse

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Title: One Purple Hope!

Author: Henry Hasse

Release Date: February 17, 2010 [EBook #31307]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ONE PURPLE HOPE! ***

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Transcriber's Note:

This etext was produced from Planet Stories July 1952. Extensive
research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on
this publication was renewed.

[Illustration: _If I'm going to die it's going to be my way--that
was Latham's last thought._]

ONE PURPLE HOPE!

By HENRY HASSE

_Once he had been a tall, straight spaceman, free as the
galaxies. Now Joel Latham was a tsith-addict, a beach-comber
at Venusport. Maybe he'd get one last chance...._

* * * * *

His sleep-drugged mind was slow to respond. He was lying face down, he
knew that. And he ought to get up. If he didn't get up he would drown.
Something hot and heavy, like a huge hand, was pressing him deeper
into the brackish mire. He pondered. Perhaps it were better to drown.
For a moment he allowed himself the luxury of the thought, then
decided against it. Plenty of time later for drowning. First there was
something he had to do!

So it was that Joel Latham, Earthman, age thirty, occupation space
drifter, avocation tsith drinker, awakened on this most momentous of
mornings.

Moaning in protest, he slowly rolled himself over. The sun slapped him
hard against the eyes. He blinked against the pain and saw that he was
still in Venusport; rather he was at the edge of the swamp near the
sprawling compound. Overhead the ionic field was aglow, humming
softly, beating back the obscurant mists.

He managed to stand up. Some of the pallid-faced gweels, out in the
swamp, stopped their work to stare at him. Latham grimaced. Every
fiber of him, especially his brain, seemed to have been squeezed dry.
Then